


Grin And Bear It

by emiliaf25 (emiliaf24)



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Cinnamon Roll Jack, Collin is the pettiest bitch in all of Detroit, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Is a Good Bro, CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60 Has a Different Name, Gen, He just wants all of his friends to like each other is that so wrong, Protective Connor, RK800-60 is call Collin - Character, Social Media, YouTube, gratuitous pettiness, we still love him but oh my goooood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 19:55:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20315116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emiliaf24/pseuds/emiliaf25
Summary: "....Collin had been hoping to cultivate a MyTube beef the likes of which social media had never seen before. The end goal being that Collin and Jack’s online rivalry would be so great that Collin couldn’t be seen hanging out with him (lest he unintentionally incite vitriol from his fanbase on poor Jack oh no! Ah man ah shit dude oh no!) and therefore would be obliged to turn down Connor’s invitation of joint activities with them. Obviously Connor would then prioritize spending more time with Collin (and maybe Nines sometimes but not very much. Only if it was convenient), which would then faze Jack out into a distant acquaintance, and the situation would be a perfect resolution for all parties..."





	Grin And Bear It

On a normal day Collin is pretty cheerful and easy going. He’s a bit of a mischievous dumbass, but anybody he roasts or any pranks he pulls is done with good humor and rarely, if ever, hurts anyone's feelings.

When he’s around Jack, however...sometimes….

Sometimes he’ll revert to his evil anime villain monologuing ways….

Connor, Jack and Collin had been hiking for a few hours, long since going off the trail. Today was not a “who can figure out how to get back home the fastest with our internal navigation turned off” day. 

(Connor loved his friend and brother to death, but between these two not exactly...completed models; one would end up in Wisconsin and the other would end up  _ upside down _ somewhere). 

Today Collin was doing a Detroit: Safari Zone video and his followers were finally getting their thrice damned wish; Jack was doing a collab on the segment with him.

Not that Collin had gone down gently into that sweet stasis, oh no. Hell no. He’d been hoping to cultivate a MyTube beef the likes of which social media had never seen before. The end goal being that Collin and Jack’s online rivalry would be so great that Collin couldn’t be seen hanging out with him (lest he unintentionally incite vitriol from his fanbase on poor Jack oh no! Ah man ah shit dude oh no!) and therefore would be obliged to turn down Connor’s invitation of joint activities with them. Obviously Connor would then prioritize spending more time with Collin (and maybe Nines sometimes but not very much. Only if it was convenient), which would then faze Jack out into a distant acquaintance, and the situation would be a perfect resolution for all parties.

Collin had tried  _ everything  _ in the MyTube Drama Starting Pack For Dummies handbook. He’d posted a scathing reaction video to one of Jack’s Mario Maker playthroughs, he’d called Jack out on Twitter to face him in an official MMA cage match, he’d even made a diss track about the Irish RK800, which - despite being neither a Kpop nor Professional Shit Talker model - had somehow made it to iTunes’ Top Ten charts, second only to (as all songs had been for the past twenty years) Old Town Road.

All his efforts were for naught, though, because Jack had expertly clapped back with positivity at every turn.

Collin’s reaction videos: met with gleeful agreement at how terrible Jack was. His challenge: accepted enthusiastically at the prospect of sparring with a good friend. His diss track: declared a fucking  _ bop  _ and played at every opportunity on Jack’s channel. Incidentally, this made the song more popular. Critics were calling it a “ _ love letter to a best friend _ ” and “ _ the most transformative satirical genius of the year. This isn’t just a ‘diss track’, this is an  _ ** _experience_ ** ”.

Wh. WHAat.  _ SATIRE _ !?!?  _ Fucking _ …!!! What part of a song titled: “ _ Jack Is a Functional Android But Could Do With Some Improvement On His Efficiency A Rap Song By Collin Anderson _ ” could  _ possibly  _ be misconstrued as anything other than hateful vitriol. 

But misconstrue it they did - his fans, Jack’s fans, a good chunk of the internet, some out of touch news stations, some even more out of touch Late Night show hosts, and some very confused Grammy Awards Committee Members, all of them. Even with bars as cruel (so cruel, in fact, that Collin had worried his account might get suspended for slander) as “his motherboard is damp/it’s as ugly as his lamp (hey!)”, the two of them were being hailed as the most epic bromance of the year.

Collin swore on Amanda’s digital urine soaked grave that if they were nominated for some inane bEsT BFFs award then he was gonna start biting toes off!

In the end, it was the Sixty-Squad that forced his hand. He’d been DM’d and PM’d out the ass with requests for  _ some  _ kind of collab between the two of them, and...Kamski  _ fucking  _ damn them all to life as an automated plunger but he was a sucker for his gremlin army. They never harassed him or made outrageous demands like a lot of other fans did to their MyTubers. They didn’t hold his Deviant Hunter (all 30 minutes of it) past against him, or chased away anyone that did. Hell, they even stuck it out with him during his messy ass CONFESSION TIME video, where he ugly sobbed about what happened in CyberLife Tower during the night of the Revolution until his optics ran out of fluid. The least Collin could do for them was hang out with this ...this  _ other  _ version of himself (if he were made out of empty cat food tins and broken dreams) for a couple of hours.

So Collin did what he always did when he had to make a decision that he gave not one fuck about; he threw a rusty trident at a board on the wall with pieces of paper that had all of his shows haphazardly taped to it like a First Graders art project. And when he rummaged through the carnage of broken wood pieces and the glass from Hank’s hopefully not favorite vase, the paper with “Detroit: Safari Zone” was the least torn up.

Now here they were; stopped (again) at the foot of a craggy wall of rock because of Jack’s trash programing (_A G A I N_), and Collin was reaching the end of his extensive patience. This entire expedition had been one annoyance after another. First it was the time wasted looking for Jack’s precious flamingo print shorts. Like yea. OKAY Jack. _OH _\- _KAY_. Like Collin’s giraffe shorts weren’t perfectly serviceable. Clearly the holes in the ass cheeks were there for better flexibility and aesthetic perfection ya basic bitch but uh huh alright FINE. Fuck you very much that’s the last time he offered the clothes off his fucking _back _for an ingrate. Then. _THEN_. During the car ride to the mountain range Connor had chosen, Jack got to play _his _favorite song 87 times, while Collin only got to play _his _for 86. And Collin hadn’t wanted to make a big deal about it in the car, because he was trying to take the moral high road here for his brother's sake, but he was fairly certain that shit right there was actually, literally unconstitutional. And Jack should go to maximum security prison for it.

“I’m really sorry guys,” Jack said, looking up at the wall mournfully, as if it was the wall’s fault that Jack sucked. 

Connor gave the bodyguard android a consoling pat on the arm. “It’s alright. I don’t believe any of us anticipated we would be traveling so far to find a bear.” He side eyed Jack, a concerned edge in his voice as he asked; “Did you delete... _ all _ of your bouldering programming? We might be able to recover the files if there’s some data left - ”

But Jack was shaking his head already. “It’s all gone, unfortunately. I replaced it with a bubble art making program.”

“....Jack we’ve talked about this.”

“ _ I know I know I’m soooorry  _ but hang on ok? check this shit out and tell me it’s not worth it.”

Jack shrugged his backpack off his shoulders and let it drop at his feet. He pulled out a medium sized rectangular container with one plastic tube stuffed and taped into a hole in the front and another tube in the back. Next he pulled out a large pack of multicolored smoke bombs, a large tub of bubble solution, and a little bowl for the solution to go in.

Connor’s expression fell further and further the more things Jack pulled out. “That’s…” he sighed. “We were all supposed to fill our backpacks with repair kits and emergency thirium.”

Collin, who was a little behind the two of them and thus out of immediate sight, rolled his eyes, neck and torso as the holy spirit of exasperation took over his upper body.  _ Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow _ . What a fucking shock that the shittiest RK800 couldn’t follow basic instructions. Unlike Collin, who had filled his bag with actual  _ useful  _ things. Like his Xbox 460 and light up frisbees.

Jack had planted himself in a wide horse stance and had his container clutched to his chest. He blew out of the tube while multicolored smoke filled bubbles of varying sizes exploded out of the other tube. The bubbles slowly bobbed and danced over their heads, little pale clouds filled with rainbows and pure android delight.

Connor’s eyes followed the tiny floating pastel nebulas, completely mesmerized. “This is...exceptionally pleasing to look at.” Through some unknown instinct, he poked a bubble that floated up close to him. It popped soundlessly, leaving the roiling turquoise smoke to hover in place before it dispersed wisp by wisp into the atmosphere. Collin had zero urges to do the same.

“ _ Scheeeee _ ,” Jack slurred triumphantly, some green smoke snaking out of his mouth as he grinned. “I tol’ch you ish a goo’sh idea’sh!”

“It’s definitely  _ an  _ idea,” Connor deadpanned. “We still need to figure out a way to get you up there….”

“Damnit! It appears we have exhausted all of our options!” Collin said before Connor could so much as  _ think  _ of running some reconstructions about the matter. He ran his console_victim_v.6.71 protocol in order to keep his voice and expression at the correct levels of sympathetic, because his deviancy was literally rejecting the very thought of being nice like a particularly harsh strain of whooping cough. “I suppose the most efficient thing we can do now is leave you behind while we continue forward. Shucks! I did not want that to happen at all.”

“Awwww. Sh’really?” Jack’s eyes grew big and his brow furrowed. He looked genuinely despondent, but his sadness was unfortunately offset by the rainbow bubbles he was steadily chugging out like a smoke stack, and the fact that he was a little bearded obstacle between him and his brother’s undivided attention, so Collin paid it no mind.

He gave Jack a pat on the shoulder before strolling past him and Connor, looking at the mountain side as if it were the true enemy and not a stroke of good fortune. “I’m afraid so. AH! If  _ only  _ you had chosen to irresponsibly tamper with your software on a day that  _ wouldn’t  _ severely inconvenience not only myself and Connor, but all the fans we promised a video too.” He sighed, tone, without his notice, just  _ dripping  _ with insincere saccharinity the more he spoke. “But I understand inconsideracy and impulsiveness are as difficult to adjust to as any other emotion. I mean, yes, statistically two years  _ is  _ a long enough time to acclimate to deviancy  _ but _ , would you look at that! You are a  _ prime  _ example of there being exceptions to that rule! So that’s something, right?” 

He crossed his arms against his chest, closing his eyes and allowing his lips to curl into a smirk. “Oh, it must be weighing on you  _ so  _ heavily to come all this way only to achieve nothing of importance - I really am sorry for that Jack, truly. But hey, maybe we’ll be able to edit some old footage of you into the intro so your time won’t have been completely wasted - ”

“ _ Annnnnnnnnd _ done!” Connor chirped brightly. He and Jack pulled their previously clasped, currently plastimetal hands away, clearly having just completed an interface. “That’s the bouldering program re-installed.”

Collin froze.

_ Oh  _ nooooOOOOOOOOooooooooOOooooooOOOoooooooooooooo.

Did he. Did he just ...perform a whole ass soliloquy to the squirrels and God?

He replayed the last two minutes and...yup. Mmhmm  _ YUP _ that was him alright oh good he’d even placed the back of his hand ever so delicately against his forehead oh yea he bet Jesus  _ reallllllyyyyy _ appreciated that fucking actors touch to the show!!

‘Sup Zeus if you wanna strike a boi down now's as good a time as any.

“Thanks Connor. I promise this is the last time I delete a skill in order to replace it with another one. In retrospect I probably could have just looked up instructions on how to make bubble art.”

“I find How To videos to be very helpful as well.”

“Ooo! Is that how you learned how to make a functioning smith and wesson out of play-doh?”

“No.” Connor grimaced, blushing. He muttered; “I wish Markus would stop telling people about that.” He then continued in a normal tone, as if hoping to erase his latent ability to make guns out of anything from the universes’ memory; “It  _ is _ where I learned how to make deep sea, underwater sandcastles, however.”

Jack’s eyes lit up with excitement and awe. “That’s fucking sick bro...the good ‘sick’, not the humans expelling all manner of fluids ‘sick’.”

Connor slowly nodded in understanding, but he was no more enlightened for it. The longer Collin and Jack remained internet sensation people the less Connor was able to decipher their speech. As he contemplated giving in and just downloading the entire Urban Dictionary website and damn the consequences, he noticed his brother attempting to become one with the mountain side. “Oh I’m so sorry Collin! Were you saying something? I didn’t register your words while I was fixing Jack’s code.”

“Nah,” Collin said, before power walking to the base of the wall and scrambling up it and away from his feelings as fast as androidly possible.

“Hm. That’s strange. I know my auditory bio-component was picking up some noise - ”

“Nah bruh that ain’t me.”

Connor exchanged a baffled look with Jack, who shrugged in equal confusion.

“He must really want to see them bears,” Jack offered.

A steely glint of determination entered Connor’s eye, as he was reminded of their original mission. He cracked his knuckles and neck, rolling his shoulders. Connor felt newly rejuvenated. He was amped. That bear was gonna get pet so good they wouldn’t know what hit them. “As do we all, Jack.”

____________

(A viewer - and many others like them - sees a new notification pop up on their iGlass X3.  _ NEW! Detroit: Safari Zone ft. Jack and Connor Anderson _ blares at them on the opaque screen. They excitedly swipe it, and after a few seconds their MyTube app autamically opens and the video begins)

[Text appears on the black screen. Collin’s voice rings out from the MyTube ether as he reads it line for line]

**“** Warning: The following show features stunts performed by professionals, so for your safety and the protection of those around you, do not attempt any of the stunts you are about to see - ”

[The white text disappears, leaving the screen black. More text appears in a scripted format, the dialog blinking into existence as Connor and Collin speak]

**Connor** : Stunts? We didn’t do any stunts. And we’re not professionals.

**Collin** : Humans would consider the things you were doing “stunts”. I’m only saying this so they won’t try and copy you, particuarly underaged humans.

**Connor** : Children watch your show!?

**Collin** : I meaaan….they  _ shouldn’t _ ? But if I were a human child I would definitely watch me, so I assume that they do.

**Connor** : Oh no…we used so much inappropriate language! Will your channel be demonitized for rampant bear degradation? I knew I shouldn’t have called her morally corrupt, I felt bad as soon as I said it….

**Collin [laughs]** : Con,  _ relax _ . I’m not going to get demonetized - 

**Connor** : I should have worn some safety gear -  **[scoffs]** I can’t believe I didn’t take into consideration the fact that children might be watching - what a terrible oversight. They should know the proper safety measures to take when backflipping over a bear -

**Collin** : It’s fiiiiiiine Con, you did great! Look, if you’re that worried about it we’ll edit it all in post.

(They do not edit it in post)

[The black screen shifts to Collin and Jack crouching in the grass, which was up to their calfs. There is a bandage on Jack’s nose and Collin’s arm is wrapped with gauze, a patch of blue blood seeping through the material. They are grinning from ear to ear, although Collin looks more like he might be biting down on granite] 

**“** TOP OF THE - ” Jack looks down at the watch he doesn’t need, “LATE AFTERNOON TO YA LADDIES!” He bellows happily, absolutely unmindful of the powerful omnivore in the background. Thankfully the omnivore doesn’t appear mindful of him either.

“‘Su - uh,” Collin side eyes Jack, “‘SUP GAMERS! IT’S YA BOI! COLLIN!”

**“** And I’mmmmmm  _ Jack _ .” Jack smile’s nicely, back to regular volume.

Collin stares at Jack, and there is a very fed up look in his eyes that is surely a trick of the light.  **“** And we’re here on another episode of Detroit: Safari Zone, Brown Bear addition.”

[The camera zooms in the not too far distance to show a very big female brown bear lying in a clearing with her bear butt facing them. Connor was off to the left of her, slowly inching his way in her direction while holding a big ass fish behind his back]

Jack faces the camera, eyes serious and tone taking a more grounded lilt.  **“** Thanks to climate change and the illegal introduction of genetically spliced salmon, piranhas and cows (commonly called the Viper-Moo Fish) into the wild back in 2027, many Brown Bears have since then been forced to migrate from their original habitat in the North. In this past year alone over 4,000 Brown Bears have migrated to Michigan in order to escape these apex predators and the unsuitable weather cycle, for the most part sticking to unpopulated forestry and mountainous areas.”

“As you can see,” Collin says, “we’re taking a break from our normal wildlife investigations, since the bear did not take too well to our initial approach.”

[The video jump cuts to several scenes of the three androids doing various impressive acrobatics to dodge the ever angering bear. The video lingers on the image of the bear curling up into a big ball, super salty now that it was obvious to the animal that she will not be mauling/eating these wily intruders this day. 

For reasons that are not clear in the video, Jack appears to slip on something and falls face first to the ground. Collin laughs wildly at this. So wildly, in fact, that he flings his arm back and accidentally stabs it on a low hanging tree branch behind him. 

Jack lifts his head from the dirt and gasps.

Connor covers his mouth.

Collin stares at his impaled limb blankly. 

…….

“FU - !!!”

The video abruptly switches back to the current Jack and Collin]

“So Connor insisted that he conduct the investigation for now,” Collin continues brightly, “since Jack replaced all of his emergency first aid supplies with arts and crafts bullshit.”

Jack nods solemnly. “And Collin replaced his with an Xbox.”

(Viewers would note the slight widening of Collin’s eyes and the  _ cracking  _ noise that could be heard though the video as he smiled harder. It sounded like marble breaking and rage incarnate. Fans would later speculate that Collin’s wound must have been hurting him more than he was letting on, and he was trying his best to grin through it. Aww. That was their sweet little Collin alright. Always doing his best for the community.)

“...Mm _ HMM! _ ” Collin gritts out.

“But hey! We might be able to teach the bear to play Tetris, so it’s not all a wash.”

Collin scoffs. “You can’t teach a  _ bear  _ to play video games. They have zero patience and zero thumbs.”

Jack shrugs, unperturbed. “Connor taught Sumo Taeguk Two. It might be possible.”

“He...hum.” Collin paused, mulling that over.

[A little “i” in a white circle appears in the top right corner of the video. If a viewer were to click it, a link to another video with the title: Connor Teaches Poomsaes To His Pooch would materialize on the side]

“W-well...obviously we wouldn’t start off with something so difficult.”

“You’re right.” Jack clucks his tongue. “We wouldn’t want to overwhelm her on her first try. Does she look like she’d be interested in Dark Souls Seven?”

“For fucks sakes Jack I said easier not pre-school level, jeeze!”

[Jack looks over at the bear contemplatively, as if he could decipher a video game that would suit her if he just scanned her hard enough. Connor is now well within mauling distance of her. He tosses the fish a little to her right. She looks over her shoulder at him and gives what can only be a glare for daring to be alive in her presence. Connor holds her stare with a beaming smile as bright as a solar flare, gesturing with jazz hands at the fish and back to her.]

Jack gasps. “Holy shit holy shit  _ Collincollincollin look-it! _ !”

“Oh shit!” Collin picks up the walkie talkie by his knee and brings it up to his face. “Connor, Connor! What’s your status?”

There’s the sound of static. Then; “ _ I have made contact. _ ”

Collin and Jack exchange excited glances, at last a solidarity that had been keenly absent throughout the entire video.

[The camera zooms in towards Connor and the bear. The bear was munching on the fish, more or less appeased now that she was at least being fed after all the trouble they put her through. Connor, meanwhile, was softly petting her side in his crouched position.]

“And what is your report?”

“ _ A great deal of her underfur is exposed because of the summer, _ so  _ she is super foofy Collin. I repeat, super foofy. _ ”

“On a scale of 1 to 10,” Jack says, “10 being cotton candy and 1 being Gavin Reed’s tenuous projection of a “bad boy” persona, what would you say her foofiness levels are?”

“ _ I’d say it’s firmly between clouds and eternal happiness, Jack. _ ”

“You heard it here first, folks,” Collin says, facing the camera again. “Bear fur is made of clouds and eternal happiness…”

(The video carried on, bringing forth a lot of entertainment and unintentional laughs to viewers. Many fans commented on the fact that this was quite possibly the surliest they had ever seen of him in a video or live stream. And that included his infamous rant on how crop tops were made specifically to make him look terrible. It was eventually chalked up to a combination of his unexpected injury, the formula of his video varying, and plain old nerves. 

They were sure that the next time Jack came on the show, it would run much more smoothly.)

**Author's Note:**

> A bday fic for the lovely @thelonelycreature 
> 
> For more updates, fic shorts, headcanons, asks, and other nonsense check out my tumblr at: https://emiliaf25.tumblr.com/


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